When the Universe Started Talking Back (Part 5 of 6)

The Fear of Being Called 'Woo' Nearly Silenced Me

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

New here? Welcome! This is Part 5 of my 6-part manifesto series—the raw, unfiltered story behind why I created Unshakeable Coaching. If you're just joining, I'd suggest starting with [Part 1]. Each post builds on the last as I share how I dismantled a life built on "shoulds" and learned to trust myself instead.

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After my grandfather kept his promise, the floodgates opened.

It started small. A song on the radio that answered a question I'd asked that morning. A book recommendation from a stranger that contained exactly what I needed to hear. A cancelled meeting that freed up time for an unexpected opportunity.

But within weeks, the synchronicities weren't small anymore.

I'd think about someone I hadn't spoken to in years, and they'd call that same day. I'd struggle with a decision at work, then find the perfect solution scribbled on a random Post-it note that fell out of an old notebook. I'd ask the universe for a sign about whether I was on the right path, and three different people would use the exact same unusual phrase in conversation with me before the day was over.

The rational part of me was fascinated. This wasn't random—there was clearly a pattern. So I did what any good researcher would do: I started documenting everything.

I kept a synchronicity journal, noting dates, details, and outcomes. What I discovered was remarkable: the more I paid attention to these moments, the more they appeared. And the more I acted on them, the better my life became.

But I needed to understand what was happening. I wasn't content to just call it "magic" and move on. My scientific mind demanded a framework.

Maybe it's because I come from a long line of people who never saw science and spirituality as enemies. Seven generations of Presbyterian ministers in my family, yes—but also scientists. My great-aunt was a chemistry teacher when women weren't expected in labs. My great-uncle Holmes Rolston III won the Templeton Prize for his work bridging ecology and theology. My great-grandfather was actually excommunicated from the Presbyterian church in the 1950s for preaching that evolution and Christianity were beautifully compatible.

Faith and science ran side by side in my family, braided like a double helix.

So when strange things started happening to me, I didn't immediately dismiss them. But I also couldn't just accept them without investigation. I needed to understand.

That's when I discovered Carl Jung's work on synchronicity. I was browsing in a bookstore, running my fingers along the spines in the psychology section, when a title caught my eye: Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle.

Of course it would be Jung.

I'd been using the word "synchronicity" to describe what was happening to me, but I had no idea it was actually Jung's concept—or that there was serious psychological theory behind it. Reading his formal definition felt like discovering the blueprint for my own experience.

Jung called synchronicities "meaningful coincidences" that suggest an underlying pattern or intelligence in the universe. He believed these weren't random events but evidence of what he called the collective unconscious—a deeper layer of reality where all minds are connected.

Here was a brilliant psychiatrist—the person who actually developed the theory—saying that my experiences weren't delusions. They were another form of knowing, worthy of serious study.

But it was quantum physics that really stopped me in my tracks.

Einstein called quantum entanglement "spooky action at a distance"—the scientifically proven phenomenon where particles remain mysteriously connected across vast distances, instantly affecting each other in ways that shouldn't be possible according to classical physics.

If particles could be mysteriously connected across space, what if consciousness worked the same way? What if the synchronicities I was experiencing were evidence of some kind of invisible web connecting all things?

I wasn't abandoning science—I was discovering that science itself pointed toward mystery.

And yet, there was still a part of me that felt terrified to fully embrace this side of myself. The part that had mystical experiences, that paid attention to dreams, that believed in synchronicities.

I had spent my entire adult life building credibility through logic and achievement. What would people think if they knew I was making decisions based on "signs"? What would my colleagues say? My family?

I could almost hear the dismissive voices: She's lost it. She used to be so grounded. This is what happens when high-achieving women have breakdowns—they go all woo-woo.

The fear of being dismissed, of losing the respect I'd worked so hard to earn, was real. But the pull toward this deeper way of living was stronger.

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Around this time, something else shifted. I started having dreams that felt different—more vivid, more purposeful. In one recurring dream, I was teaching a room full of women about trusting their inner knowing. I'd wake up with my heart racing, not from fear but from recognition.

I began to sense that all of this—the synchronicities, the spiritual opening, the breaking free from achievement addiction—was leading somewhere specific.

But where?

The answer came, as answers had been coming, through a synchronicity.

I was having coffee with a friend who mentioned she was struggling with a major life transition. As I listened to her, I found myself saying things I didn't know I knew—about trusting the process, about how breakdowns often precede breakthroughs, about the wisdom that lives in uncertainty.

When we finished talking, she looked at me with tears in her eyes. "I've never heard anyone put it like that," she said. "You should be helping women through this stuff. Like, professionally."

That night, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about our conversation, about the other women who had been reaching out to me lately with similar struggles. Women who had achieved everything they were supposed to want but felt empty inside. Women who sensed there was more to life but didn't know how to access it.

I realized I wasn't the only one who had been living someone else's definition of success. There were thousands of us—maybe millions—of high-achieving women who had lost touch with our own inner compass.

And I had accidentally developed a way back.

Not through more productivity hacks or vision boards or positive thinking. But through something deeper: learning to trust the intelligence that lives within us. Learning to treat our emotions as data, our intuition as guidance, our dreams as roadmaps.

I had unintentionally created what I would later call the Unshakeable framework—a way of living that honors both logic and intuition, both achievement and authenticity.

But I didn't know that yet. All I knew was that something was calling me forward. Something that felt bigger than my individual healing, bigger than my personal transformation.

The synchronicities weren't just happening to me anymore—they were happening through me, pointing me toward a purpose I was only beginning to glimpse.

Everything had been speaking to me for months. Now it was time to listen to what it was actually saying.

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If this story feels familiar—if you're ready to stop living someone else's version of success and start trusting your own inner compass—then…

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